Robert Gatewood- Founder | Creative Director | Instructor
robert@boulderwritingstudio.org
Robert is a published novelist and screenwriter with more than 10 years experience teaching creative writing. Most recently, Gatewood taught fiction, non-fiction and screenwriting for the University of Colorado, where he was consistently ranked among the top instructors in the department. His novel, The Sound of the Trees, highly acclaimed by such publications as The Denver Post, Los Angeles Times, and Publishers Weekly, was a BookSense 76 Selection and listed among the “Best Books of the Southwest” by an association of Independent Bookstore Owners. Gatewood previously held the position of Literary Editor at the quarterly magazine Traffic East. He has been a visiting writer at Wake Forest University and the University of Mississippi, and appeared on such broadcasts as NPR’s Spoken Arts and Thacker Mountain Radio. He is the recipient of MacArthur Foundation and Whiting grants. He has also been awarded fellowships by The MacDowell Colony, Jentel Artist Residency and has twice been in residence at Yaddo, one of the country’s preeminent artistic organizations. Gatewood is at work on his second novel, and is currently negotiating the production of his most recent screenplay.
Elena Levy- Developmental Director | Events Coordinator
elena@boulderwritingstudio.org
Elena has over half a decade’s experience in dual immersion language programs, linguistically diverse education, and disadvantaged populations. She holds an MA from the University of Colorado at Boulder in Educational Equity & Cultural Diversity, with an emphasis in Linguistically Diverse Education.
Chris is the author of Plata o Plomo, which recently won the McNamara Creative Arts Grant and was short-listed for the Faulkner-Wisdom Award. He is also a three-time winner of Center of the American West’s Thompson Award for Western American Writing. Most recently his work has appeared in Bull: Men’s Fiction and There & Back. Rosales is a Writer-In-Residence at Colorado Humanities Center for the Book. In addition to his position at Boulder Writing Studio, Rosales teaches Literature and Creative Writing at The University of Colorado at Boulder and Denver Metro State College. Most recently, Rosales was named Fiction Editor at SpringGun press. He is currently working on his next novel.
Serena has been published in the Denver Quarterly, Fact-Simile, The Laurel Review, VOLT, No Tell Motel, Pax Americana and other literary publications. Her chapbook, “Speaking to Your Man,” was released in August 2010 by Peninsulas Now Press. Her latest chapbook, “Penumbra” was released in August, 2011. In 2010, she was the finalist in the Black Ocean Press book contest, the Kundiman Poetry Prize with Alice James books, the Undefined Magazine poetry competition, and The Midwestern Chapbook Series, judged by G.C.Waldrep. She is a 2010 Kundiman fellow, a former intern for The New Press in New York City, and works with Writers in the Schools to teach creative writing to Denver elementary school children. Serena is the co-founder and curator for TitMouse Magazine, and the co-editor of Spine Road Journal. She teaches writing at Metropolitan State College and the Community College of Denver. She lives and works in Denver.
James is the author of three books, including The Wild Upriver and Other Stories and Martha Maxwell: Natural History Pioneer. His most recent book, The Way Home: Essays on the Outside West was published in 2010. Jim’s short stories and essays have appeared in literary journals around the world, including Island, Frontieres, Divide, Sport Literate, Puckerbrush Review, Kinesis, Apostrophe, and Rolling Stock. He has read his work at the Sorbonne in Paris, and was the featured American author at the Watermark Literary Muster in Australia. Jim earned an M.A. in Creative Writing and a Ph.D. in English at the University of Colorado, where he has taught courses in literature and creative writing since 1986. He has also worked as an outdoor journalist, wildlife biologist, musician, carpenter, sign painter, and bus driver. He continues to write both fiction and creative nonfiction.
Melanie Gillman – Graphic Novel & Comics Instructor melanie.gillman@colorado.edu
Melanie Gillman is a graphic novelist and colored pencil artist living in Denver. She holds an MFA in comics from the Center for Cartoon Studies, and has had her comics published in a number of newspapers, magazines and anthologies, including Westword, 7Days, The Sleep of Reason, Queerotica and Cellar Door. In addition to her work The Studio, Melanie also teaches courses on comics and illustration history at the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design, and is currently working on her second graphic novel, which can be read and followed at http://melaniegillman.com.
Jenny is the author of the novel The Ringer (The Permanent Press, 2011). The Ringer was a finalist for the Reading the West Book Awards, sponsored by the Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association, and was a Tattered Cover Book Store Summer Reading 2011 selection. Her stories, essays, and reviews have appeared in many publications, including McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, The Onion, Poets & Writers, Boulder Daily Camera, PBS Media Shift, and The Huffington Post. Her writing will appear in a McSweeney’s anthology of political humor to be published by Vintage in 2012. One of her stories was nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and another was listed among the “Notable Essays of the Year” in the Best American Essays. She has won writing awards from the Center of the American West, the Montana Committee for the Humanities, SouthWest Writers, and the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund. Jenny Shank was the Denver/Boulder Editor of The Onion A.V. Club for six years, and for four years she was the Books & Writers Editor of New West, which was named “Best Literary Blog” in the Westword Best of Denver issue. She has taught creative writing at the University of Colorado, the Lighthouse Writers Workshop, and the Boulder Writers Workshop. She lives in Boulder, Colorado.
Clay is a graduate of The Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he taught Fiction Writing and studied under Marilynne Robinson, Frank Conroy, Deborah Eisenberg, James Alan McPherson and Robert Cohen. He lived for six years in Prague, Czech Republic, teaching English and writing at Charles University and mastering the Czech language. In addition, Clay has taught composition at LaGuardia and Aurora Community Colleges. His work ranges from short stories, to essays, to a screenplay adaptation of a Robert Coover novel. He currently lives in Boulder and is finishing a novel.
Chris Thomas- YAP Instructor
Chris Thomas is a media writer, screenwriter and senior level creative with over 15 years experience in the field of instructional design and media production.
Her abiding interest in the development of new, engaging learning methodologies has brought her to the Boulder Writing Studio to help design and coordinate the youth learning programs. She has taught art and English to post-secondary students and is currently consolidating her extensive hands-on experience as she finishes her graduate degree in Instructional Design at the University of Colorado Denver.
She is the recipient of three Alfie Awards including the Judges Choice Award, The National Retail Council’s Heineman Trophy for ground-breaking work in broadcast advertising and the International Television and Video Association’s Award for Outstanding Achievement. Ms. Thomas has focused on designing learning and presentation modules for a diversity of technical areas and national clients. Specializing in new media, Chris’ projects include computer animation, electronic and traditional illustration and audio/video and film production.
Lindsey Drager- TAP Instructorlindsey@boulderwritingstudio.org Lindsey Drager holds an MFA from the University of Illinois where she taught creative writing and served as an editor for Ninth Letter and the Review of Contemporary Fiction, a publication of Dalkey Archive Press. Her prose has been published or is forthcoming in Mid-American Review, Redivider, Dislocate, The Journal, Sonora Review, Artifice Magazine, The Pinch, Gulf Coast, Kenyon Review Online, and elsewhere. She was a finalist for the 2012 Lake Forest College/&NOW Madeleine P. Plonsker Emerging Writer’s Residency Prize and the 2012–2013 Starcherone Books Prize for Innovative Fiction. Having spent a year working in textbook publishing in Los Angeles, she is currently a PhD candidate in Creative Writing at the University of Denver. In her spare time, she serves as Copy Editor for the Los Angeles Review, Editorial Assistant for the Denver Quarterly, and at-large judge for the NCTE’s Program to Recognize Excellence in Student Literary Magazines.
Vani Kannan- YAP Instructor
Vani Kannan moved west from Brooklyn last summer after doing editorial work for 7 years. She’s currently pursuing an MA in English Rhetoric & Composition at Colorado State University, teaching first-year composition, and engaging in thesis research.
Matthew is an MFA candidate at The University of Colorado at Boulder. Treon is also a contributing writer at The Marquee and reviews books for the online magazine Playback. In addition to his position at Boulder Writing Studio, he teaches Intro to Creative Writing at CU.
Studio Interns
Mackenzie Suess is a Boulder based writer wondering about next steps and visiting the ocean again. She attends CU Boulder for Creative Writing with a focus on fiction, but gets her feet wet with poetry and journalism as well. She’s written for the Denver Voice, shared a stage with various poets through the annual Boulder Body Slam, worked with the online journal The Fat City Review, and is currently in an extended revision process.
Natasha McKinney has worked in childcare and education for 14 years, most recently as a BWS summer camp instructor and as a teachers assistant at Julie Rohr Academy in Sarasota,Fl. In addition to childcare, she has contributed event planning aide to the Studio along with event planning companies in the Denver Metro Area. She attends Metro State University.
Patrycja Humienik is a Polish-American interdisciplinary artivist from Chicago, now based in Boulder. Her ammo of choice: the literary arts, dance, voice, piano & the art of translation. She is the Arts & Culture writer for Twine Collective, Director of Education and Performance Arts Programming with BolderLife Foundation, and a collaborator with Language of Fish Collective Arts and the You & Me Project.
(Image courtesy of: Heather Gray Photography)